The "Beer Police"

A friend of mine recently sent me a .wmv that was supposed to be amusing that shows two office types that are stranded when their escalator stalls on them...

It's supposed to be funny because it's a ridiculous precept -- but, I dunno just how ridiculous it really might be...

One time, on my lunch hour, I picked up a sandwich and a beer at a major grocery chain store (whom we'll allow to languish in anonymity... for the moment...) on Marlow Road in a neighboring town and was waiting in line to pay for them when the power went out.

For some reason, the generators didn't kick in and, what was worse, all of the doors locked down and nobody could get in or out... :^s

After standing there for about 35 minutes -- in the dark -- in the stationary "10 items or less" line, I said to myself:

"Screw this, I'm hungry and this might take my whole friggin' lunch hour -- IN ADDITION to the fact that, in essence, Safeway is holding me prisoner in their Marlow Road store against my will..."

(Which I figured was a pretty "uncommon circumstance" and, as such, might just call for me to take "extraordinary measures"...)

So, I ate the sandwich standing there in the line -- which made me very thirsty, so, I popped the beer open using an attachment on my Swiss Army knife and drank it standing there in the line, as well.

Even before that, I'd tried (unsuccessfully) to convince the checker that one could -- by means of addition and then multiplication and then addition again -- add up the prices of one's items, add the (I think it was 7% at the time) sales tax by multiplying the total by .07 and, if one had exact change and didn't care whether or not s/he got a receipt, the lines might thereby be considerably lessened.

Also, it might have an added benefit for, those who could pay for their purchases thusly, might then go off in search of somewhat more comfortable places to sit while they waited for the power to be restored.

I even suggested that all of the items could be entered into their proper registers after the power came back on and the receipts then thrown away if they just needed a paper trail of the items for inventory or whatever...

But none of them would go for it. :^(

After, all-told, about 47 minutes, the power came back on and -- when I set the sandwich wrapper and the empty beer bottle down on the counter, the checker frowned at the bottle, hefted it, shook it a little, held it up to the light and gasped, "Well, THAT'S weird -- it's empty!"

I said (quite matter-of-factly), "No, it's not weird... I drank it right after I ate my sandwich -- about 15 minutes ago..."

She looked at me like I'd said I'd just tried to blow-up the Golden Gate Bridge with C4 explosives and shrieked, "YOU CAN'T DRINK BEER INSIDE THE STORE!! IT'S ILLEGAL!" 8^0

I looked at her with sarcasm positively DRIPPING onto the floor from a face that showed only shocked amazement and said in an "awestruck" loud whisper:

"Wow... I'm imPRESSed... Not ONLY are you a CHECKER here at the Safeway on Marlow Road, you're also a bona fide member of the BEER POLICE! Now, THAT'S truly a-MAZ-ing! How DO you find all the energy?"

A look clouded her face like she smelled something bad and she took my money, put the empty bottle and the wrapper in a grocery bag and sent me off on my way...